1. Technical Field
This invention relates to the field of illumination of safe exit doorways, windows, stairs, paths of egress or other safe exit portholes or other portals of an enclosed or semi-enclosed structure, such as a private residence, to help evacuees/occupants more swiftly and safely evacuate such a structure in the event of a fire, heavy smoke event, earthquake, security breach, and/or the presence of unsafe levels of hazardous gasses or other noxious fumes or any other emergency or event which its user desires to be informed of through its activation. The invention also relates to the materials, articles and processes used for exit illumination systems, as well as to how and when to use the same. The invention also relates to the field of providing a new and unique form of egress-marking visible notification appliance technology designed to be integrated into code-compliant fire-related notification appliance circuits and other security systems, access control systems and other types of systems to deliver emergency exit and egress path illumination in varying forms to the occupants of the residences, buildings, facilities and structures, maritime vessels, recreational vehicles, airplanes, trains and other vehicles, and other locations where such technology may be useful.
2. Background Art
“According to the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA), more people die annually in the United States from fires than all other natural disasters combined . . . ”
People regularly become quickly confused and disoriented in building structures under siege by fire, smoke and other perilous situations. In particular, when building structures are on fire or are otherwise experiencing a heavy smoke event from smoldering materials, smoke fills the building structure, floor by floor, space by space, from the ceiling down toward the floor. That is, smoke first fills areas overhead, closest to the ceiling, and as a space fills with smoke, the floor levels are the last areas to become visually occluded by smoke.
Per FireHouse.com, “on average, 8 people die every day in the United States in residential fires. It is estimated that 75 percent of ALL fire-related deaths are due to smoke inhalation brought about by disorientation.”
In residential settings, there are typically no means by which an evacuee(s) can identify a safe exit doorway or other portal as most residential structures are not required to provide “EXIT” signage above or near the safe exit doorways.
In commercial settings, where “EXIT” signage is typically required, those signs are less than ideal once a fire has begun and the resulting smoke begins to quickly fill the structure. Because of the way that smoke fills a building structure (described above), “EXIT” signs, which by code are often required to be affixed “above” an exit portal, are the first and primary luminary devices to provide safety knowledge to evacuees and, regrettably, are one of the first things to disappear from sight during fire and heavy smoke. Obviously, an “EXIT” sign above a doorway which is invisible to evacuees is relatively useless as it can no longer successfully impart the knowledge that it was intended to pass along to such evacuee(s) in the crisis due to its occlusion by the increasingly-dense smoke in the areas proximate to its installation.
Currently, it is exceptionally rare to find a private residential setting wherein any lighted signage is used to identify a safe exit door. In commercial settings, where such signage is required by law, current “EXIT” sign location/placement is generally accepted primarily because the location of the sign is “out of the way” and is generally clear of passers-by, cleaning and maintenance staff's vacuum cleaners, carts, hand-trucks moving goods into and out of the building structure and other normal use of the building structure that could damage, break or otherwise disable the device. Notwithstanding the safe place for such signage to be installed and to be maintained, the location is one of the worst places for its intended purpose during smoke and fire events.
Numerous quotes, statistics and facts regarding structure fires in the US directly relate to the need for the preferred embodiments of the present invention. The following are some examples:                According to the Unites States Fire Administration, “approximately 2,865 people die in residential fires every year,” which is the equivalent of the 9/11 life loss tally every year.        Per FireHouse.com, “on average, 8 people die every day in the United States in residential fires. It is estimated that 75 percent of ALL fire related deaths are due to smoke inhalation brought about by disorientation.”        One of the most heart-wrenching statistics is that “more than 40 percent of residential fire related deaths among children, ages 9 and younger, occur when the child is frantically attempting to escape his/her own house.”        “Every 20 seconds, a fire department responds to a fire somewhere in the United States.”        “Once a minute, a fire occurs in a structure.”        “Home is the place where you feel safest. But your home is also where you are most likely to die in a fire. Four out of five fire-related deaths among civilians occur in the home.”        “Today, people who die in fires typically die in ones and twos, in their own homes and vehicles.”        “In 2013, U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated 1,240,000 fires. These fires resulted in 3,240 civilian fire fatalities, 15,925 civilian fire injuries, and an estimated $11.5 billion in direct property loss,” based on data reported to NFPA's “Fire Loss in the United States During 2013.”        “Most fire deaths are not caused by burns, but by smoke inhalation.”        “As a fire grows inside a building structure, it will often consume most of the available oxygen, slowing the burning process. This “incomplete combustion” results in toxic gases.”        “In addition to producing smoke, fire can incapacitate or kill by reducing oxygen levels, either by consuming the oxygen, or by displacing it with other gases. Heat is also a respiratory hazard, as superheated gases burn the respiratory tract. When the air is hot enough, one breath can kill.”        It is projected that one out of every 5 homes in the U.S. will have a fire, burglary, or carbon monoxide poisoning in the next 6 years. “Homes” includes dwellings, duplexes, manufactured homes (also called mobile homes), apartments, row-houses, townhouses and condominiums. Other residential structures, such as hotels and motels, dormitories, barracks, rooming and boarding homes, and the like, are not included in this statistic.        
Analogous challenges are presented in virtually any type of disaster or emergency situation that requires immediate evacuation of a building structure, whether due to fire, flood or earthquake, or whether due to human threat such as a security breach, hazardous gas release, terrorist attack, bomb threat or the like.
Common modern visible notification appliances in fire alarm systems utilize a single-point of high-intensity light xenon lamp and lens to emit intense stroboscopic pulses of light into their indigenous areas as a form of “indirect” lighting to alert occupants and to assist occupants of a building in hopefully locating a path of egress and the exits to evacuate the space, area or building. These appliances are also utilized in sleeping areas to “wake” slumbering occupants where higher intensity flashes, 17 candelas luminosity, are used to wake sleeping occupants.
These conventional strobes pump their light into a broad area of the room or space to light up the area for occupants to see enough of the space or area to navigate to an exit. In fire alarm systems, conventional traditionally recognized xenon emergency strobe lights are required to be installed on the ceiling or up high on the wall at or above 80″ inches and below 96″ in height unless the ceiling height of the room will not permit same. Common emergency lighting and exit signage appliances are also typically a point-source light which is installed elevationally high on a wall or above a doorway. They are designed to provide ambient light and exit location information to people in a building crisis such as fire, power failure and other emergency events. Alternatively, the present invention, herein referred to as an Egress Marking Visible Notification Appliance™ (EMVNA™), is installed all of the way around the periphery of an exit door and/or along a path of egress, up high and at lower levels, in a much more effective configuration when smoke from fire begets the extinction of light; an all too common phenomenon in fire. Unlike common visible notification appliances in fire alarm systems, emergency lighting appliances and exit signage appliances, the EMVNA captures the value of light as an alerting, demarking, and directional medium and place it in exactly the right format and locations at exactly the right time, i.e. during a building evacuation event or emergency.
In comparison to the EMVNA, traditionally recognized conventional emergency strobes do not “directly” identify the exit point or path of egress like the EMVNA. In contrast, The EMVNA, even though it is also a stroboscopic luminary designed to provide alerting functions and it does deliver lower intensity ambient-type lighting like strobes, is NOT intended to perform the same functions as traditional conventional emergency strobe lighting devices. Its moderate intensity light output and light color is specifically designed not to create flash blindness in evacuating occupants and to provide them with a light color that is profoundly easy to see and process. The EMVNA is not intended to wake sleeping occupants and it is not intended to provide standard xenon strobe light intensities of light. Rather it is intended to alert, demark and direct occupants via an alternative location-of-light, intensity-appropriate and hue of color configuration designed to be “superior in its effectiveness and safety”.
The activation of this new form of egress-marking visible notification illumination in fire alarm control panel driven systems is driven by a fire alarm control panel's activation and the resulting actuation of its notification appliance circuitry or through another integrated system's activation. It can also be integrated with emergency lighting appliances, devices and systems; exit lighting appliances, devices and systems; path-marking systems; as a component in an array security system components and devices in a security system; as well as access control systems. This new system is designed to deliver emergency alerting and directional illumination at elevationally high, low, or simultaneously both high and low, locations in space, to highlight safe exit doorways, windows, stairs or other safe exit portholes or other portals, or predetermined paths of egress and/or intermittent points of emergency alerting and directional illumination along such paths of egress of an enclosed or semi-enclosed structure as identified above.
Few material advancements in visual notification devices have occurred since their initial entry into the marketplace. This segment of the industry went from almost total obscurity to literally blowing up in the 1990s when the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, et seq., (ADA) codes were enacted. As enforcing authorities having jurisdiction (AHJ's) have developed an understanding of the current technology, notification appliances have emerged as an important, yet somewhat static and mundane, part of fire safety and building operations worldwide. And, as acceptance of their importance to fire safety has been incorporated into fire and building codes, reliance on them nearly everywhere is almost a given. Generally, it was just a limited few pioneers who were first to market the modern visible notification appliance products; mostly large, well-capitalized companies have inherited the benefits of being founders of what now has evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry with sales approaching four times U.S. domestic sales annually worldwide.
Today, the Egress-Marking Visible Notification Appliance (EMVNA) technology interrupts this trend by delivering a unique and much more effective appliance with versatility, functionality, and overall efficacy than that of conventional traditional visible notification appliances. Until the advent of the EMVNA, no other appliance has entered the market which successfully combines a system-integrated visible notification appliance with exit-marking capabilities. Traditional code required system-integrated visual notification appliances and other exit-path marking device's typical placements and configurations, while immensely important as an acceptable means of visual notification to date, are materially less efficient than the EMVNA technology in delivering the visual notification message to occupants as smoke pours into an occupied space in a fire and fills the space from the ceiling down. The commonplace emergency strobes, emergency lighting and exit signs, and their systems, though important to preserve for a myriad of reasons, fall short in a number of ways as the graph below indicates.
Some have tried to overcome such challenges and problems by designing creative exit lighting systems, but their attempts have fallen far short of the ideal. Among those are the inventors of the following patents: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,794,373, 5,130,909, 5,343,375, 5,418,523, 5,612,665, 5,755,016, 5,815,068, 6,025,773, 6,237,266, 6,646,545, 7,114,826, 7,255,454 and 7,391,319.